Drug WarRant

“bullet” I found this article fascinating. I’m pretty sure I’m reading it right, but check it out yourself. I believe that the author is referring to drug policy reform groups as anti-crime groups. Which is absolutely correct, of course, since legalization will dramatically reduce crime, but I didn’t expect to see it in a newspaper.
Anti-Crime Groups Cautiously Optimistic About New Drug Czar

Washington, D.C. (AHN) – Vice President Joe Biden’s announcement of the choice of Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske as the nation’s drug czar on Wednesday elicited praise from Washington lawmakers, but cautious optimism from non-profit anti-crime groups.

And then it goes on to get quotes of cautious optimism from Ethan Nadelmann and Norm Stamper.
“bullet” The big news, of course (and this has been brought up in comments) is that the position of Drug Czar will go back to not being a cabinet-level position.

The agency will no longer have Cabinet-level status, but the official said that Kerlikowske “will have a seat at the table when important decisions are being made … and full access and a direct line to the president and vice president.” […]
Colleagues expect him to ramp up efforts to stem demand for illegal narcotics by emphasizing prevention and treatment.

It’s good to see at least, if nothing else, a shift of perceived emphasis by taking it out of cabinet-level position.
I also found this interesting:

John Carnevale, an official in the drug office from its inception in 1989 until 2000, met Kerlikowske while working on ways to measure the agency’s effectiveness. “He’s big on accountability,” said Carnevale.

Carnevale has been a very outspoken critic of the ONDCP and its lack of accountability.
More at the Washington Post
“bullet” Now if you want to see a blatant attempt at ass-kissing, check out this press release: The Partnership for a Drug-Free America Lauds Kerlikowske as New Director of Office of National Drug Control Policy. They even snuck in an opportunity to kiss Joe Biden’s ass. This is a group that, of course, depends on the government to supply them with grant money to spread propaganda.
Note how PDFA is even reading the tea leaves and getting the picture that marijuana demonization will be of less interest to this administration…

“The Partnership looks forward to working with Chief Kerlikowske and his team in a renewed effort to address the most pressing threats to our nation’s youth, including the intentional abuse of prescription and over-the-counter medicines, and to continue the outstanding progress made on illicit drugs like methamphetamine.”

Marijuana isn’t even mentioned once.

People often talk about the drug war being a failure, and, in fact, three quarters of the voting public believe the drug war is a failure.
I’ve said it myself.
But it’s really not a good description, and calling it a failure doesn’t do what we need to motivate the public to care enough about reform.
You see, the word “failure” conjures up images of merely not succeeding. We often think of it like grades in school. A failure is someone who didn’t apply himself, or failed to do the necessary things to “pass.” It implies that there could be a path that would result in “success” if only more effort was given, or a different approach.
By calling the drug war a failure, we’re treating it like some kid getting an “F” in chemistry because he slept through too many classes, when in fact it’s more like the kid blew up the chemistry building and released toxic chemicals into the drinking water.
That’s not a failure to accomplish something. That is accomplishing something very, very bad.
We need to remind people that, yes, the drug war has failed to accomplish any of its stated goals, but the drug war is not a failure.
It is the problem.

Found some wifi on a layover in Chicago and have some time to kill.
“bullet” Moron of the day. Florida Senator Mike Bennett wants to reduce unemployment benefits to pay for drug testing those on unemployment. Yeah, that’ll calm things down in periods of extreme financial unrest. Fortunately, the ACLU is on the case. [Thanks, Mel]
“bullet” Quote of the day:

Bill Maher on Presidential cocaine abuse. “To start off, George Bush did a lot more blow than Obama ever did. Please don’t ruin the only thing I like about him.”

“bullet” Next up from the ONDCP, an anti-meth campaign. I think we should scrap all the anti-drug government-funded media campaigns, but if we’re going to have any, this is a better subject than all the stupid anti-marijuana ones we’ve been facing.
Of course, the latest, which probably was actually developed last year and is now seeing some media and blog play, is this stupid online interactive piece that claims that getting high will damage your video game playing capability (via everybody, but I like Reason’s headline best: I Was Gonna Kill an Orc, But I Got High). Because, of course, being a little slower at certain video games can ruin your future success of a lifetime sitting on Pete’s Couch while your dog looks at you with disappointment and an alien steals your girlfriend. Wow. I just realized. The people who make these ads are reeaaallllyyyy stoned.
“bullet” Somebody asked me why I hadn’t talked about Glen Beck coming out in favor of legalizing marijuana. I hadn’t heard about it until then. I really don’t watch any of the 24-hour cable stations (I actually have to put in my parental guidance security code to watch FOX news) and shows like Beck’s don’t interest me in the slightest. If something important happens on any of those talking head shows (other than Stewart or Colbert, of course) I’d rather read a transcript than watch the video.
But apparently Beck did it

Beck starts off this segment saying “I woke up this morning and I thought, we should legalize marijuana.”

All right. Go Beck. Maybe he learned something from his debate with Kampia.
“bullet” Programming note. John Stossel will be talking about medical marijuana provider Charlie Lynch this Friday.
“bullet” New Yorkers: Time to apply some pressure to get rid of the Rockefeller drug laws.
“bullet” Putting pot under the microscope (L.A. Times)

Members of Congress have urged Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. to amend or overrule the order, and he should do so. Then he should go further and change the culture of the agency. Instead of thwarting the advancement of science, the DEA should encourage cannabis research. As California and the U.S. government continue to debate the future of medical marijuana, what we need is a body of work on the drug’s efficacy in treating a variety of illnesses and conditions. Instead, we have a collection of small studies and individual testimony. On Monday, President Obama signed a “scientific integrity presidential memorandum” and promised that his administration would base its public policies on science, not politics; the DEA is one of many federal agencies ready for enlightenment.

Related:

“Promoting science isn’t just about providing resources — it is also about protecting free and open inquiry. It is about letting scientists like those here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it’s inconvenient — especially when it’s inconvenient. It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda — and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology.” – Barack Obama

Now let’s hold him to it. And get Congress to help out. Remember, science could be a way to sidestep the political traps of drug policy reform. It allows the politician to shift the responsibility onto the scientific evidence when making policy that is controversial.

Blogging is going to be a little bit sporadic this week. I’m heading to New York for a few days. And this trip is not only about being in New York, but getting there.
I’m taking Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited from Chicago to New York (and another train between home and Chicago), so, basically, Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday will be spent on the train with no wifi connection. I plan to read and look out the window.
I’ll be in New York on Wednesday evening through Saturday morning if anyone wants to get together for coffee or a drink.
I’m also seeing Martha Clarke’s Garden of Earthly Delights (which I’ve wanted to see since the 1980s) and the classic musical Hair (which, of course, I’ve seen before, but I’m anxious to see the new Broadway revival now in previews), and I’m connecting with some friends.
So discuss and share (you guys are the greatest at keeping track of what’s going on). I’ll jump in when I can while I’m in New York, but for a couple of days the best stuff will probably be in comments.
“bullet” Here’s a little video for you from the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union contest.

Change is in the air
Rob notices it

There’s been some talk of late around the drug blogosphere, and with drug policy non-profits, that we’re reaching some sort of potential tipping point for drug policy reform. I tend to agree. You could say I’m cautiously optimistic. […] there clearly is an appetite for — if nothing else — a healthy discussion about drug policy.

And it really is true. People are actually talking about a marijuana legalization bill in California. People are actually talking about the fact that prohibition is to blame in Mexico. People are actually talking about the problems with our prison system.
And if you recall, that was the biggest part of our problem — getting people to talk about it. Once we are allowed to have the national discussion, we’ve got the science, the reason, and the truth to prevail.
As Paul notes in comments, Pat Buchanan is seeing the light, and Vox Day in World News Daily takes that opportunity to call for conservatives to re-discover their rightful opposition to the drug war.

…for nearly 30 years, conservatives have been guilty of one of the greatest abuses of American liberties in American history, and have actively abetted the growth of central government by their thoughtless support for the war on drugs. […]
There is nothing š absolutely nothing š conservative about the war on drugs. […]
The fact that the Obama administration is now citing Mexico’s narco war as an excuse to limit Second Amendment rights should suffice to prove to conservatives that the time has come to end the war on drugs. Yes, Mr. Buchanan, America must raise the white flag in the drug war.

People are talking.
The ONDCP is actually hinting off the record at a shift in policy, and the hard core drug warriors have been reduced to bragging about their success in meaningless terms like “not winning, but not really losing either” (and, of course, the people are beginning to understand that the only metric that could possibly show them ‘not losing’ is that they’re so far still receiving money to fight their war).
This is a window of opportunity. I don’t think any of us knows what could come of it, or that any of us thinks that major change will now come easily (it will still be a hard fought battle against powerful funded government inertia and self-interest), but the chance of increasing public awareness (which is the most important next step) is huge.
We need to take advantage of it.
Update: (via Radley) Former Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey

Questioner: …why not just legalize drugs? …
McCaffrey: … fortunately, since I’m not in public life, I actually don’t care. I care about 6th graders through 12th graders. If you’re 40 years old, and you’re living in Oregon, and you have 12 giant pot plants in the back of your log cabin, knock yourself out. [Note: he then goes on to say stupid things, but this was interesting.]

It sounds just like some old comedy — maybe The Real McCoys’ Walter Brennan, or Uncle Jesse on the Dukes of Hazzard, or perhaps the old Snuffy Smith cartoon strip.
It seems that 80-year-old Marjorie Crawford and 68-year-old Hubert Henkel had one of them moonshine stills way out in the country in rural Oregon. Or maybe it was just that they were just growing a few plants – yes, that’s it.
Now you remember how it goes in the old stories. The local constabulary gets wind of the moonshine plants, and stops by to have a chat with with the senior citizens. The cantankerous old man waves his shotgun and says “Git off my propitty, you danged revenooers” and the Sheriff says “Hold on, Grandpa! It’s me, Sheriff Taylor. We got to come to some kind of understanding here — strictly according to the law, that still them plants are illegal.”
And so Grandpa promises to mend his ways and grandma puts out some fresh corn bread for everyone and they all laugh and the dog barks.
Except in this case, they shot and killed 68-year-old Hubert and put 80-year-old Marjorie in jail on felony charges.

……

Apparently they never watched those old shows.

……

The article assures us:

The two involved Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office Deputies were not physically injured during this armed encounter

Link

The Guardian (UK) has an article (that joins dozens I’ve seen around the world recently) questioning the continuance of the drug war as it has existed. Cocaine production surge unleashes wave of violence in Latin America

Almost all those interviewed agreed that insatiable demand for cocaine in Europe and north America had thwarted US-led efforts to choke supply and inflicted enormous damage on Latin America.
“We consider the war on drugs a failure because the objectives have never been achieved,” said CÚsar Gaviria, Colombia’s former president and co-chair of the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy.
“Prohibitionist policies based on eradication, interdiction and criminalisation have not yielded the expected results. We are today farther than ever from the goal of eradicating drugs.”
The commission is urging a “paradigm shift” from repression to a public health approach, including decriminalisation of marijuana. Dismal statistics about coca cultivation, cocaine exports and murder rates have amplified calls to replace a policy which dates back to Nixon with one which focuses on curbing demand.
“The strategy of the US here, in Colombia and Peru was to attack the raw material and it has not worked,” said Colonel RenÚ Sanabria, head of Bolivia’s anti-narcotic police force.
A report by the Brookings Institution, and a separate study by Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron which was endorsed by 500 economists, have joined the chorus demanding change.

This is so encouraging to read in major newspapers.
Of course, there were the usual voices of those who profit from the drug war (like Uribe) calling for a continuation of what they are now calling the “not winning, but not losing” war policy.
Then the article ends with:

A recent report by the Government Accountability Office concluded the war had failed in Colombia. It was commissioned by Joe Biden, then a senator, now the vice president.
A spokesman for the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which spearheads Washington’s approach, hinted the new administration may switch tack.

And… And?….
Don’t leave me hanging like that. Switch tack to what? Is that all? That’s potentially big news, if true.

Big thanks to NORMLinFL in comments for pointing us to Congressional Research Service Report RL33211: Medical Marijuana: Review and Analysis of Federal and State Policies by Mark Eddy, Domestic Social Policy Division, November 10, 2008.

CRS reports are compilations and summaries of existing information, and are commissioned by Congress to provide background information to be used in helping them formulate policy. Ideally, they are intended to be a straightforward presentation of the available facts, without bias or political agenda (although some CRS reports I’ve read end up with perhaps unintended bias due to incomplete research methods and/or failure to ask the right questions).

This CRS report is one of the best I’ve read, and stands on its own as an excellent summary of the history, science and politics of medical marijuana.

Here’s an important part of its methodology:

In the ongoing debate over cannabis as medicine, certain arguments are
frequently made on both sides of the issue. These arguments are briefly stated below
and are analyzed in turn. Equal weight is not given to both sides of every argument.
Instead, the analysis is weighted according to the preponderance of evidence as
currently understood. CRS takes no position on the claims or counterclaims in this
debate.

What follows is an attempt to analyze objectively the claims frequently made
about the role that herbal cannabis might or might not play in the treatment of certain
diseases and about the possible societal consequences should its role in the practice
of modern medicine be expanded beyond the places where it is now permitted under
state laws. [emphasis added]

An excellent approach which, since the evidence leans toward medical marijuana, leads any reader of the report to naturally see the reason and logic in supporting medical marijuana.

The report notes that it is unlikely for Congress or the Administration to reschedule marijuana out of schedule 1, but that puts them at odds with vast public opinion, the Supreme Court, and science.

It’s really something to read all the points in history of medical marijuana and see how narrow political self-interest in the DEA, FDA, HHS, etc. trumped science and medical/legal opinion at every turn.

And then, matter of fact statements sprinkled throughout, such as:

Many patients have found that they benefit more from the whole plant than
from any synthetically produced chemical derivative.87 Furthermore, the natural plant
can be grown easily and inexpensively, whereas Marinol and any other cannabisbased
pharmaceuticals that might be developed in the future will likely be expensive
Ö prohibitively so for some patients.88 […]

The federal government‰s own IND Compassionate Access Program, which has
provided government-grown medical marijuana to a select group of patients since
1978, provides important evidence that marijuana has medicinal value and can be
used safely. […]

The therapeutic value of smoked marijuana is supported by existing research and experience. […]

Smoking can actually be a preferred drug delivery system for patients whose
nausea prevents them from taking anything orally. Such patients need to inhale their
antiemitic drug. Other patients prefer inhaling because the drug is absorbed much
more quickly through the lungs, so that the beneficial effects of the drug are felt
almost at once. This rapid onset also gives patients more control over dosage. […]

Concerns that medical cannabis laws send the wrong message to vulnerable groups such as adolescents seem to be unfounded. […]

Marijuana grown for medical purposes, according to DEA and
other federal drug control agencies, can be diverted into the larger, illegal marijuana
market, thereby undermining law enforcement efforts to eliminate the marijuana
market altogether. […] GAO responded that in their interviews with federal officials regarding the impact of state medical marijuana laws on their law enforcement efforts, ‹none of the federal officials we spoke with provided information that abuse of medical marijuana laws was routinely occurring in any of the states, including California.Š116 The
government also failed to establish this in the Raich case. […]

The situation that Grinspoon and Bakalar described in 1995 in the
Journal of the American Medical Association persists a decade later: ‹At present, the
greatest danger in medical use of marihuana is its illegality, which imposes much
anxiety and expense on suffering people, forces them to bargain with illicit drug
dealers, and exposes them to the threat of criminal prosecution.Š131 […]

As for the charge that politics should not play a role in the drug approval and
controlled substance scheduling processes, medical marijuana supporters point out
that marijuana‰s original listing as a Schedule I substance in 1970 was itself a
political act on the part of Congress.

Scientists on both sides of the issue say more research needs to be done, yet
some researchers charge that the federal government has all but shut down marijuana
clinical trials for reasons based on politics and ideology rather than science.143 […]

The report concludes with a discussion about the politics of medical marijuana…

Is it cynical or smart for NORML and other drug reform organizations to
simultaneously pursue the separate goals of marijuana decriminalization for all, on
the one hand, and marijuana rescheduling for the seriously ill, on the other? It is not
unusual for political activists tactically to press for Ö and accept Ö half-measures
in pursuit of a larger strategic goal. Pro-life activists work to prohibit partial-birth
abortions and to pass parental notification laws. Gay rights activists seek limited
domestic partner benefits as a stepping stone to full marriage equality. Thus is the
tactic used on both sides of the cultural divide in America, to the alarm of those
opposed. […]

Rescheduling marijuana and making it available for medical use and research is not necessarily a step toward legalizing its recreational use. Such a move would put it on a par with cocaine, methamphetamine, morphine, and methadone, all of
which are Schedule II substances that are not close to becoming legal for recreational use. Proponents of medical marijuana ask why marijuana should be considered differently than these other scheduled substances.

It is also arguable that marijuana should indeed be considered differently than cocaine, methamphetamine, morphine, and methadone. Scientists note that marijuana is less harmful and less addictive than these Schedule II substances.

Acceptance of medical marijuana could in fact pave the way for its more generalized use. Ethan Nadelmann, head of the Drug Policy Alliance, has observed, ‹As medical marijuana becomes more regulated and institutionalized in the West, that may provide a model for how we ultimately make marijuana legal for all adults.Š151 Medical marijuana opponents have trumpeted his candor as proof of the hypocrisy of those on the other side of the issue. Others note, however, that his comment may be less hypocritical than astute.

This would be a good report to print and send to your Congressional Representatives (at both the state and federal level). Just to make sure they’ve seen it.

The Senate Committee on Homeland Security is planning hearings on southern border violence (ie, the drug war).
And now there are some House Hearings as well that may come up in the next week as well. Commenter Pat Rogers is all over this on his blog, along with providing lists of House Committee Members and Senate Homeland Security Committee members.
I’ve got to say that at first glance, the makeup of these Homeland Security Committees is pretty horrible. Chairman Lieberman? Pryor, Coburn, McCain, Burris? And Souder in the House? These are names unlikely to demonstrate even a glimmer of intelligence regarding the drug war.

I’ve always thought of Al Roker’s DEA as a form of drug war pornography.
But apparently, it’s just soft-core porn compared to Chris Ryan’s Elite Police (DVD out on Monday)

And they‰re about ‹knock down the doorŠ of a cocaine-making lab . . . big time.
KABOOM! A searing blast of heat scorches Chris‰s cheeks as the hut VAPORISES before his eyes, sending a 3,000ft plume of smoke into the air thanks to plastic explosives planted by the JunglasÖColombia‰s frontline cops in the war against drugs.
‹We left the coke lab a blast site of scorched metal stinking of napalm,Š says Bravo Two Zero hero Chris who worked with the squad for his dramatic TV series, Elite Police, about the South American cocaine trail. ‹Then we needed to get out fast.Š

This is drug war action so intense, it even spontaneously breaks out into CAPITALS!
But of course, this isn’t about making money. It’s got a more important message:

‹There was a story where 14 gangsters‰ bodies turned up without heads. Their gang then chopped off the rival gang‰s heads a week later. There‰s no end to what they will do.Š
Now Chris hopes his programme will make cocaine users in the UK sit up and take notice. ‹Despite cocaine being so addictive, some Brits see it as relatively harmless,Š says Chris.
‹But as I discovered, the facts behind it are horrifying. And the misery it causes on its way to our streets is shocking.Š